Monday, October 10, 2005

In an earlier post, I told how I became a Brooklyn Dodger fan at age nine, so you know I have a thing for underdogs. Now that the Red Sox are out of it, the bonds of spousal loyalty have been cut, and now that the Braves are gone, only one team that I loathe (the one I loathe maximally) is still in the chase. (As I write this, the Angels cling to a two run lead over said loathed team in the bottom of the seventh, having survived an onslaught by the cream of said team's order in the top of the inning, yielding only a solo homer to Jeter. So there's hope.)

Assuming the Angels succeed in driving a stake through the Steinbrennerian heart tonight, that leaves Angels vs. White Sox, Astros vs. Cards. I was glad when the Angels got it a couple of years ago. They were classic underdogs. But since their ridiculous name change - why couldn't they just call themselves Los Angeles de Anaheim? - I can no longer take them seriously. Normally, I would root for the National League team in any event, out of loyalty to my Mets and disdain for the AL game. (What's good about the designated hitter rule? Oh, yeah. It extends the careers of great old warhorses like Rafael Palmiero.) And the Cards, everyone's favorite to win the NLCS, happen to be the team I admire most on purely aesthetic grounds.

But the Chisox haven't won it since 1917, and there would be something nice about their winning it the year after the team that hadn't since 1918. That, and getting over the Black Sox thing, just like getting past the Curse. And Chicago's a great town.

Sorry, guys. Teams I root for have about the same success ratio as politicians I back. But, go Sox!

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About Me

I narrowly missed being that rara avis for my generation, a native Floridian, when the U.S. Army closed its hospital in Tallahassee, shortly before my mother’s due date. She went home, and I was born in a city renowned in Vaudeville humor: Altoona, Pennsylvania. In that chilly March of 1946, the first sound to reach my infant ears from outside the hospital walls was likely the shriek of a steam locomotive’s whistle. This could explain my lifelong love of trains. Four surface crossings of the Atlantic in childhood also led to fascination with ships and the sea.

My father was in the military, so our family (I was an only child) went from place to place often in my early years. I was in England from the ages of five to eight (the first newspaper headline I recall reading is “KING DIES”; the King in question being George VI, father of Elizabeth II) and began my formal education in a rural county council (what we call “public”) school, where I probably escaped having my bottom caned only because the headmistress feared creating an international incident. Other places where I lived while growing up were Miami, San Antonio, Cheyenne, the Florida panhandle and Tampa.

I graduated from the University of South Florida (B.A., 1967) and Harvard Law School (J.D., 1970). After that, apart from two years' duty in the U.S. Army, I practiced law in New York City. I worked in law firms and as in-house counsel, and served on the boards of directors of an insurer and a reinsurer. On a volunteer basis I now write for Brooklyn Heights Blog and the Brooklyn Bugle, and also publish my own blog, Self-Absorbed Boomer, which has been described as "relentlessly eclectic." In 1991, I married Martha Foley, an historian and archivist. We live in Brooklyn Heights. Our daughter, Elizabeth Cordelia Scales, also lives in Brooklyn.